The increasing interest in mine safety and efficiency has produced self-guided vehicles. Remote operation of underground vehicles will increase worker safety and reduce the costs incurred from the infrastructure needed to support miners. In the future, miners will perform several tasks over a video link and will be able to send the vehicles to their destinations using maps on a computer screen.
The majority of robotic path planners developed to date deal with navigating in completely unknown two-dimensional environments, usually consisting of mostly empty space with a few obstacles. Work in this area has concentrated on a `universal` strategy to handle all situations, such as neural networks or inertial navigation.
One of the most reliable means of guiding vehicles is the global position satellite (GPS) system. For example, Caterpillar's U.S. Pat. No. 5,684,696 discloses a GPS guidance system for controlling the path of a vehicle. Unfortunately, the GPS system has insufficient strength to penetrate down to underground mines.
M. S. Collins, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,465,155, provides an early example of a system designed for underground operation. This system relies upon a gyroscope-controlling guidance system in combination with four transmitters mounted on a shuttle car. A plurality of sensors establish the shuttle car path and determine shuttle car functions. Baiden et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 5,530,330, disclose a self-guided scoop tram. This scoop tram relies upon a flexible lighting tube and cameras to guide it from fixed position to fixed position. Although this process has proven effective for remote control hauling of ore, disadvantages include blasting damage, dust covering the light guide and the cost of installing and updating light guides for each path. Chevrette et al.'s Canadian Pat. No. 2,049,773 discloses an optical guidance system for moving underground mine vehicles between locations. This system relies upon a vehicle following a reflector ribbon mounted on the ceiling of a mine drift. This system also requires the installation of a ribbon and periodic maintenance.
It is an object of this invention to provide a guidance system for an autonomous vehicle that requires no supporting infrastructure.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a guidance system to enable an autonomous vehicle to guide itself without any reference to the GPS or any other positioning signal.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a system capable of steering vehicles through intercepting drifts and around obstacles.